Locked Away
by Twisted Root
Summary: A One-Shot about Walter Kovacs, pre-Rorschach.


Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Watchmen. I'm merely a fan who is completely smitten with it.

A/N - If there are any mistakes or inconsistancies in this, please let me know so I can change it (or delete it).

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Locked away

He strode through the pouring rain, each drop pasting thick red strands of hair against his slick forehead. Every step fell into a puddle, each adjustment of his battered grey lapels sent cold liquid weaving down his spine. It was October, just another grey month amongst years of grey months in his grey life. Walter stole a glance at the ripped and sodden poster clinging for dear life on the sombre brick wall in the alley. _Vote Nixon_, it ordered as he hurried past. He clenched his jaw and felt another slop of water crawl down the side of his neck. How easy it would be if the populace saw the command of the advert and obeyed, he thought. People were not that easily led, after all, Walter didn't suffer fools and he had reluctantly accepted that in some small way he was part of the proletariat. Snappy media tags wouldn't be enough to persuade. Not everything was _that_ black and white…

…Just grey.

A few more turns and a few more squelching steps and he would be at home- a castle of barely fourteen feet square, with a small bathroom offset from its court. It was his sanctuary from the factory, away from the querying eyes, the posturing men and giggling female colleagues who he shared his workspace with. He kept quiet, part of the cattle, but staring from the outside in. Manufacturing clothing was a monotonous but necessary chore. It was nowhere near challenging enough to his mind, but it was something he could easily escape out of and into his imagination. He would spend some of the time trying to halt his memory from dredging up his long-dead mother. Mostly, he thought about his father and how he was probably helping his fellow man by being strong and sure of himself, maybe he was in politics? An aide to Nixon, or at least someone who provided guidance to those in the upper echelons of government…yes, he was sure his father would be entertaining an important position like that. Someday Walter would be like him, maybe follow in his dad's footsteps. 'Ah-hurrm.' Walter cleared his throat and crinkled his freckled nose. He was doing it again, talking about himself in the third person.

He skimmed through another puddle. Just one more splash of the city's dirty tears staining his boots.

Walter stopped at the next turn and squinted through the rain at two silhouettes leaning against the wall. The shapes indicated a man and a woman; the man had his hand placed on the woman's thigh. No doubt it was a whore and her customer…disgusting! Feeble minded monstrosities clinging to each other like crabs, victims to their own baser urges. Walter continued forward, his mouth a thin slash of disapproval. As he neared, he became aware that something was not right. The pitiful moaning that reached his ears through the clatter of the downpour was of fear on the part of the woman, not pleasure—pretend or otherwise. As Walter smashed his boot into another puddle, the man jerked his head toward him, his eyes widening at the sudden appearance of unwanted company. He turned on his heel and bolted down the alleyway, disappearing into the grey air. Walter wouldn't bother following the man as the woman seemed safe. He quickly passed the woman by, barely giving her a glance but noticing a few stray tears that would be lost in the rain. At least she was safe now. What was the saying? Prevention was better than a cure.

He heard her voice carry through the deluge of water.

'Thank you' it stuttered.

'Uh-huh' he replied.

He didn't stop.

The rain abated as Walter climbed the step of the apartment block. He gave a wry smile at the clearing sky and gently shook the rain from his head before pushing his way into the dingy hallway. He managed to ascend to his castle without bumping into his landlady, whom he abhorred. It was a small mercy to which he was thankful. Walter battled with the old dusty lock to his apartment and it took a few determined turns of the key before the door finally swung open, allowing him access to a room of draughts and dirty plates. He made a mental note to clean up tonight, not that he had anyone to impress, not that there was anyone worth impressing—_except your father_—said the voice in his head. He grunted and threw his drenched New York Gazette on the table. A newspaper purchased purely for protecting from the rain the magazine that was wrapped within it.

He laid his grey coat on the floor, above a crack where the draught was particularly unforgiving and sat down at the stain covered table. It didn't take him long to find the New Frontiersman hidden in between articles about gang culture and growing unemployment. As he lifted the magazine from its paper coat, he spotted a picture of a dark haired girl. He frowned and read the story. He read it again to make sure that he had read it right. It was there in black and white—a girl raped and murdered whilst onlookers did nothing. Her name was Kitty Genovese, a name that somehow seemed familiar to him. Kitty's photograph was reproduced with shades of grey but her image was merely a ghost that haunted a damp newspaper. Walter stared closely at the picture and shook his head—no, not greys. Varying densities of black against a white background provided that illusion. It was simplicity made out to look more complex than it actually was.

But it was the harsh black font sticking matter-of-factly against a crisp white sheet that made Walter raise his head and gaze through the window at the black silhouette of a broken city against an off white sky. Soon the sky would be black too and the only smatterings of white will come courtesy of city denizens' apartment lights—safe in their homes. Not Kitty. She had no other eight lives to spare, just the one and that was snuffed out as surely as the rain had stopped, her mark left on the world in a short, throwaway article. Walter understood that people would live their lives out as a complete story, a chapter or if you were unlucky: a sentence, but all ending with a full stop. Kitty Genovese had three paragraphs worth before her demise. Maybe tomorrow she would have a front page spread to address the sickening nature of a dispassionate and uncaring community. It usually worked like that: an admonishment to a city which couldn't care less, something the media revelled in with their schoolmarm mentality and self important liberal whinging.

Walter stroked the smooth skin on his jaw as he remembered the girl in the alley. She could have been another victim. He felt his fingers clench into a tight ball and he jolted up, his thighs knocking hard against the edge of the table. He watched intensely as the paper slowly tilted over the edge and finally fell, crumpling it's edges as it made contact with worn floorboards. He then noticed the small patterns of black ink the paper had kissed the table's surface.

Walter stared at the fractioned smudges for a while, his eyelids half shut, his eyes wide open.

He crept over to a small trunk where he kept it locked away—a remnant of a dress he was sure was made for the late Miss Genovese. He reached into the contents, his hands pushing aside a tan trench coat that was as yet unworn. Someone needed to sift through the grey areas and he could be strong enough to do it, just as his father was. Walter stretched the monochromatic material and watched with intrigue as the single obsidian blob gave birth to two new forms, attached by a dark umbilical cord. He frowned and pulled again, breaking the cord. Two separate entities of similar shape rested against the purity of the snow white background, both detached and both waiting…waiting for a decision that Kovac's needed to make.

Walter licked his cracked lips. It was a question of do or don't, of right or wrong.

Walter knew it was right.

_Do it_ said the voice in his head.


End file.
